


i'm like the dead sea (finest words you ever said to me)

by whyyesitscar



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: F/F, Frozen Bananas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2014-09-26
Packaged: 2018-02-18 21:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2362115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whyyesitscar/pseuds/whyyesitscar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane, just out of the jungle, responds to an advertisement for a court artist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr and written for [counterpunches](http://counterpunches.tumblr.com/) birthday.

> _“In nature nothing exists alone.” Rachel Carson_

“Oh, Father, this is _wonderful!_ Look at the detail on the trim! Look at those arches! These must have taken ages to create!”

“If I didn’t know you so well, Jane, I’d think you’d have given up nature in favor of architecture.”

“Perhaps I have. This is architecture, true, but it is so natural in its design that I can’t help but marvel.”

/

Jane missed the trees. This kingdom was open and so blue it was almost impossible to find the seam where castle met sky. If she glanced up, she saw clouds. For the past year, if Jane had wanted to see clouds, she would have had to climb just high enough to where it began to feel a pointless venture. That, of course, is the reason she continues to hope. Even after an exhausting journey, she was rewarded with something beautiful.

She couldn’t have pinpointed the moment where the jungle started feeling less like home. Or perhaps the trouble was that it had felt too much like home—once one becomes acclimated to catching in woven baskets the rainwater the roof had missed, the thrill of living in the wild starts to lose its mystery.

Tarzan—wonderful, perceptive, understanding Tarzan—had been the one to broach the subject. She wouldn’t have left if he hadn’t.

It had been another adventure getting used to civilization again. Jane wasn’t sure she would ever feel completely at ease among so many sounds. She would never stop missing the trees, or the way clean night skies made the stars shine twice as bright. Even the air was complicated in the city, Jane noticed.

She and her father couldn’t stay long in London, and when she saw a notice advertising the need for a court painter, she had jumped at the chance, dragging her father along to a small Scandinavian kingdom.

Arendelle wasn’t Africa, but it wasn’t England either.

/

Every room they walk through glimmers. Jane keeps turning her head, trying to catch something moving near the corner of her eye, and her father laughs each time she realizes it was just a trick of the light. Jane is not used to tricks of the light, not after spending a year being fooled by shadows.

Their guide stops in a grand ballroom and gestures for them to wait, bowing out of the room with a practiced “The queen will be along shortly”, and a slight waddle. Jane would be reminded of Terk if he weren’t so well-dressed.

“I know portraits shouldn’t take a long time, Father, but perhaps we could stay here a bit past the requisite couple of days.”

“And what if we’re not needed, hm?”

“Well, that hasn’t really stopped us before, has it?”

The whiskers at the end of her father’s mustache, slightly frayed yet full of life, dance the way they always do when he laughs.

“I have no intention of leaving before I’m ready to, Jane. Before either of us are ready to,” he amends.

Jane smiles. She is a long way away from anything she might call familiar, and yet she is not alone.

“Do you think—” she begins, but her father’s attention turns away from her in favor of the series of loud crashes echoing from the hallway. Jane half expects to hear a cacophony of animal calls and protests in response, and so it’s with just the slightest hint of disappointment that she listens to very terse, yet very human, voices.

“Did we really have to do that _now_ , Anna?”

“Okay, well, maybe not, but we were already late for the meeting and you’ve been promising for weeks—”

“I’m going to be sore for weeks.”

“—and anyway, kingdom stuff is _boring_ ; it’s all meetings and papers and stuffy old men talking about their stuffy old money.”

“This is just a meeting with an artist, Anna. Nothing stuffy about it.”

“No old men?”

“For your sake, I certainly hope not.”

Both women blush as they enter the room and notice Jane and her father.

“One old man, I’m afraid,” he grins, “but definitely un-stuffy.”

The woman on the left smiles, her blush fading into her auburn hair. “Well, that’s a relief.”

“Professor Porter, at your service,” he says, bowing. “And this is my daughter Jane.”

“Oh, um, Princess Anna,” she replies, curtsying hastily and knocking her ankles together.

“And I’m Princes—excuse me, Queen Elsa, “ the other woman says, blushing again. “Sorry, the coronation was only a few weeks ago. I’m still getting used to it. “

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness.” Jane’s father bows again and coughs until Jane remembers to curtsy.

“Yes, of course,” Jane stumbles. “Hello.” Everyone seems to be waiting for something more but Jane has nothing to give. “Your castle is _marvelous_ ,” she eventually manages.

Surprise flutters in Elsa’s eyes but Anna lights up entirely. “Isn’t it? Elsa—”

“Would you like to see your rooms?” Elsa interrupts. She walks away, dragging a protesting Anna, leaving Jane and her father no choice but to follow.

Somehow, once they’ve settled in the hallway and everyone is walking at his or her own pace, Jane finds that she’s sped up and fallen into step with Elsa.

“I’ve just realized we haven’t really even addressed the reason my father and I are here,” she begins. “If you were wondering which of us was the artist…”

“I wasn’t,” Elsa answers, but there is a tease of a smile in her cheeks. “Your fingers have some smudges,” she explains.

“How embarrassing; I was quite sure I’d cleaned them well enough after my last portrait.” Jane inspects her fingers and finds them pristine and free of any charcoal smears. Jane laughs and fidgets, wiping her fingers against her dress just in case. “Very sneaky, Your Highness.”

“Please, call me Elsa.”

“You’re still sneaky, whatever I call you.”

Elsa laughs and stops in front of a door. “I’m afraid I have some meetings to attend tonight, but we can talk about your ideas over breakfast tomorrow. I was thinking maybe an outdoor setting.” 

“Outdoors? But your castle is so _beautiful_.” 

Elsa simply smiles—it’s thinner this time, Jane notices—and leaves with a wave.

/

Jane finds she cannot sleep. After spending a year in a jungle listening to her father’s lips ruffle and ripple in soothing snores, Jane still has not acclimated to quiet nights. And so it is that, at 2:30 in the morning as she’s lying in bed and trying to conjure up the chirps and snarls and yelps that used to calm her, Jane hears the faint scratch of a note being pushed under her door.

_Third ballroom in the east wing of the first floor, twenty minutes._

_(Please.)_

Jane slips on her dressing gown and throws open her door to catch the messenger, but all she gets is a glimpse of auburn hair as its owner runs around a corner.

It takes Jane but a second to follow.


	2. Chapter 2

> _"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." —Marie Curie_

The castle is still inviting by night.  It is a different kind of invitation; Jane tiptoes through hallways rife with muffled carpets and silence, but the carpets are full of whispered secrets. The silence bears the weight of the moon.

Jane has long since lost her mysterious messenger—or rather, Princess Anna has disappeared; Jane is not one so easily fooled—but she continues on anyway. Jane is not the only one awake in the castle; every so often she passes a room with light emanating from beneath its door.

Jane would have stopped at this particular room even if she hadn’t been instructed. It isn’t emitting light so much as it is creating it. The glow at her feet doesn’t flicker like fire in a hearth. It breathes. It sighs and huffs. Jane is sure she even catches it laughing. This light is made for creatures of the night, and so, as has become her habit, Jane throws decorum to the wind and kneels down to get a better look.

Elsa is looking back at her. 

“Anna sent you, didn’t she,” she remarks. 

“Yes, I think so,” Jane answers, finishing with a nervous laugh. “Is that alright?”

Elsa simply opens the door.

Jane follows, half expecting to see the moon hovering at the top of the ceiling—some stars, perhaps, glittering behind the thinnest hint of clouds. But the room is empty and dark, much like every other ballroom is in the early hours of the morning. 

“Does Anna send people to you often?” Jane asks. She keeps searching the room, still hoping to find the source of the light. Her eyes land only on dark corners.

“At least one person from every visiting party we get.” Elsa smiles and clasps her hands behind her back. “She doesn’t know I know she’s doing it, but when your best thinking time is consistently interrupted by very confused dignitaries, you begin to get ideas.”

“I could go…”

“That’s what everyone says.” Elsa smiles again.

“Is that what everyone does?”

Elsa nods. “Most people linger long enough to realize I’m in the room, apologize, and close the door.”

“Well then, I think I’m in the mood for some conversation. Tell me, Your Highness,” Jane says, affecting a haughty tone, “what do you consider Arendelle’s greatest strength?”

/

Elsa, it seems, has just as large an inclination for talking as her sister, even though it has to be coaxed out of her. She speaks quietly, with measured words and a dry wit. Jane and Elsa trade the stories that only surface at night, stories you tell someone because you know you’ll never see them again. It will be a shame to leave Arendelle after her portrait is completed; there is a gentle yet pervasive friendliness about the kingdom. Jane finds it a soothing contrast to the commotion of the jungle. 

“May I ask you something?” Jane ventures during a lull in the conversation. 

“You want to know why I’m down here so late?” Elsa guesses. 

“No, I was—before I came in, there was a sort of…glimmer coming from underneath the door, and try as I might I can’t find the source.”

Elsa smiles. Jane doesn’t understand at all. “I suppose I can address both questions with one answer.” She tucks a strand of her braid behind her ear; Jane notices that her skin is almost the same pale hue as her hair. It’s eerily fitting. “You wouldn’t know it, but the castle has gone through a few…renovations lately.”

“The architecture is simply stunning,” Jane gushes. “I gave my father quite an earful of praises when we arrived.”

“You like it?”

“I _adore_ it,” Jane corrects. “Now, I haven’t had occasion to visit castles lately, but I’m sure I’ve never seen one so…captivating. It seems so natural. So full of life.”

Elsa looks as if she might cry. She smiles instead, and it takes a moment for Jane to notice the ball of fog spinning in her hand. It creaks like a lake freezing over in the winter, crackling wisps curling and disappearing into the air. Elsa waits until she’s sure she has Jane’s attention and then she shoots the fog forward from her palm, twirling and twisting her hand until the mist solidifies. 

Elsa has created a chair.

Jane realizes with wide eyes that all of the furniture in the room is made of ice.

Jane notices many things in quick succession:

Elsa’s ice is the same color as the castle, like a breath made real;

There is no fire but the room is so bright Jane has to squint against the glare from the walls;

Elsa has arresting blue eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

> _“One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, ‘What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again_ _?’” —Rachel Carson_

It is almost time for breakfast when Jane finally returns to her room. She isn’t sure if that makes her night an early or a late one. The castle is waking up and she smiles at butlers and maids as they slip through the halls. The only time Jane even knows they’re awake is when she can see them in front of her, which she supposes is a sign of exemplary house staff. 

Jane slips quietly in her room; if she knows her father—and she certainly knows her father—he will have been awake for almost an hour now. He will want to talk about the kingdom. If her father were dropped in an entirely foreign country, perhaps on an entirely foreign planet, he would still find something to talk about with the locals. Professor Porter studies adaptation in animals because he is so adept at adapting himself.

Jane loves her father. She also loves a quiet morning, and so she tiptoes as quietly as she can past his door.

She changes clothes and freshens her face. The sun streaming in through the windows brightens the room but does not blind; there is no glare from any angle. The more Jane admires the castle, the more she comes to understand Elsa. It seems almost unfair for one person to have such a talented and graceful hand.

(Jane absently checks her fingers once more—still no smudges, she knows that. She also aims to change that by the end of the day.)

Eventually the time comes when Jane can stall no longer, and she smooths her dress, waiting and listening for the click of her father’s door. She is ready for him now, her favorite walking companion.

“Jane, you look absolutely exhausted!” he says when they meet in the hallway.

(Her father is not her favorite because of his delicate tact.)

“Still adjusting to city life, I suppose,” she deflects.

“Is that snow in your hair?”

Jane pats her head, indeed finding a cold patch. Before they had parted, Jane had begged Elsa to create a minor snowstorm. _I’ve just spent a year in very warm climates_ , she’d said. _I’ve missed that wonderful chill more than you might imagine._  

Elsa’s flurries had swirled around her, falling cold and light on her cheeks. A brisk winter breeze lifted her hair and for the first time in some very long months, Jane felt like she could breathe.

Magical snow must have magical properties, Jane reasons, and she wonders how long it will take to melt on its own. Perhaps Elsa will have to see to her at breakfast.

“How odd, I guess it is,” she answers, tittering an airy laugh. “Imagine that, snow at this time of year.”

“Imagine indeed,” her father hums.

She can feel his eyes on her the whole trip to the banquet hall.

/

Elsa and a blond man are already waiting for them at the breakfast table. Jane scans the room and finds no hint of Anna, but more than a hint of exasperation in Elsa’s eyes. She takes the time to introduce her companion to Jane and her father—Kristoff, she says, Anna’s fiancé, and he fires off a quip about Anna’s tardiness. _She could forget to celebrate Christmas until February,_ he says. Jane believes his smile more than his gentle jibe.

Anna comes skidding into the room as they all sit down. “Sorry, sorry!” she huffs. “I don’t think Kai really understands the concept of ‘five more minutes.’” 

“I think he understands it perfectly,” Kristoff retorts. “Which is why he never listens when you ask for it.”

“I’m the princess; he’s _supposed_ to listen to me.”

“Only the reasonable requests.”

“You watch your tone, mister. I can have your status as Official Ice Master and Deliverer revoked; I know the _queen_.”

“Can we eat this breakfast before lunch, please?” Anna rolls her eyes at Elsa and Elsa rolls them right back. Jane can only imagine what they must have been like as children.

“Ughh, fine,” Anna groans melodramatically. She tucks into her meal with an appreciative hum and Jane can guess that this must be a daily conversation. Kristoff shakes his head, laughing, and Jane knows it is. 

/

Elsa finds time to sit for a sketching after a few hours of meetings. Jane can see the weight of the crown in her face, but it is a weight she bears with a smile and light in her eyes.

They’re in a courtyard, surrounded by flowers and finely sculpted shrubs. Even the plants are purposeful here.

“I’ve gotten so used to the castle I keep expecting it to be cool outside,” Jane remarks.

The sun glints off of Elsa’s hair and she smiles. “It’s a nice inconsistency, I think.”

“Arendelle seems to be full of them.” 

“Maybe that’s why you fit in so well.” Jane is very glad to have a sketchpad to look at; Elsa has caught her rather off-guard. 

“Try not to move, please,” she says. Elsa nods and straightens, settling back into her regal pose.

Jane is deflecting, of course. She just spent a year in the jungle, sketching gorillas and leopards that moved faster than she could blink. Elsa could run in circles and Jane would still be able to produce an adequate sketch. But adequate will not do for this portrait. Elsa’s secrets do not lie in the lithe and dangerous curve of a back; the vicious crack of a roar; the gentle pat of an enormous hand. 

Jane asks Elsa to stay still not to draw her but to gather enough time to learn how to sketch cold fire. 


	4. Chapter 4

> _"Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, we will help. Only if we help, we shall be saved."_ _—Jane Goodall_

“Have you had that ability your entire life?” Jane asks, keeping her eyes on her sketch paper. When it comes to drawing, she prefers only to make eye contact with subjects that can’t make it back.

“Since I was a little girl, yes.” 

“You and Anna must have had fun with it.”

Elsa hums and tucks her hair behind her ear; Jane quickly captures it with messy loops and whorls. “We used to,” Elsa murmurs, “but there was an accident. Anna still doesn’t remember all of it.”

“But you do?”

“I’ve never been able to forget.”

Jane makes eye contact this time. Elsa’s eyes are different from Tarzan’s—brooding, yes; contemplative, yes; curious, yes. But Elsa has light where Tarzan had darkness. Elsa hopes in spite of herself, Jane thinks.

“I knew a man who had a terrible accident in his childhood,” Jane offers, returning to her sketching. “His parents died and he was lost for a long time.”

“What happened to him?”

Jane looks up and smiles. “He became the ruler of his kingdom, too. Quite a good one, actually.”

“Well, maybe I’ll send him an invitation to Arendelle, see if I can get him to share some tips.” 

“You might find it difficult to reach him,” Jane laughs. “He’s king of the jungle.” 

Elsa stops posing and furrows her brows. “The jungle?”

“His subjects are—well, there’s really no delicate way to put this. They’re gorillas.”

“Gorillas.”

“My father and I went on an expedition to study them and happened upon Tarzan along the way.” Jane puts down her charcoal pencil and shakes her head. “It’s not as primitive as it sounds. We stayed with him for about a year.” 

“I wasn’t going to call it primitive. Just…different.”

“Different,” Jane hums. “Yes, it was different.”

“Is that why you left?”

“No. No, I loved living with Tarzan. Different is not always bad, you know.”

Elsa blushes and averts her eyes. “Different is not often good.”

“It can be very good,” Jane says, turning back to her canvas. She glances down at her sketches and surprises herself with a laugh. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but I seem to have gotten off track.” 

Jane turns her easel around and Elsa laughs, too. It changes her face completely, Jane notices. When Elsa smiles she looks extraordinarily like Anna. She makes a mental note of that for the future, for the second portrait attempt she will surely have to make. 

Elsa and Jane share a laugh over the canvas peppered with gorillas. This is another reason she stays away from portraits—there are fewer distractions when your subject can’t talk back.

“I make a very dashing monkey,” Elsa jokes.

“Oh, Kala would be very upset to hear you say that. Apes are not monkeys, Your Highness,” Jane corrects with a smile. It is easy to smile with Elsa. Jane smiles with everyone, but she takes Elsa as a challenge. Elsa can make her smile automatically. Jane is still prodding to find what makes the reverse true as well. 

“Kala?”

“Yes, of course, sorry. Tarzan’s mother. Well, his found mother. She’s—”

“An ape?” 

“Yes,” Jane smiles. “Yes, an ape.” 

“Well, if one of those sketches is Kala I’m afraid we’ll have to start over, and it will have to be tomorrow.” 

“If the weather permits, I could meet you out here once again.” 

Elsa waves the suggestion away. “The weather doesn’t have to permit; _I_ permit the weather around here. But I was thinking…maybe we could stage the portrait indoors.”

Jane grins. “I think that’s a wonderful idea. Which room is your favorite?”

“I don’t think I’ve decided yet.” 

“Your whole life in this castle and you haven’t picked a favorite room?”

Elsa shakes her head. “I picked least favorites first. Which room is _your_ favorite?" 

“I haven’t seen enough of the castle to make that choice.”

“Well,” Elsa smiles, “we’ll have to fix that.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

> _“_ _Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will ensure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter._ _”—Rachel Carson_

Jane ventures toward the ballroom earlier this time. Elsa is there already, much as Jane thought she would be. She slips through the door and finds a spot hidden behind a tapestry, and Jane begins to sketch.

/

(Only if she spent a prolonged period of time with Elsa could Jane describe exactly what she is seeing. There is snow all around her, and objectively she knows it’s coming from Elsa. But the flurries are so persistent and pervasive that they seem to be coming out of the air itself. Snowflakes and thin shards of ice find Jane in her hiding place, melting against her paper and tickling her nose. Twice, Jane almost laughs and gives herself away. But she resists and sticks to the task at hand, tracing lithe curves and smiles into every line from her nub of charcoal. 

The curves come from the snow, but the smiles come from Elsa.

Elsa, who is more at ease than Jane has yet seen her. Elsa, who dances rather than moves; whose hands have found the secrets of touch. Elsa, whose magic comes not from her powers but from her eyes.

Elsa has her hair down this night, and her feet are bare, and still she glides around the room as if on wheels.

A part of Jane feels she is intruding.

The other part keeps drawing.)

/

“How long have you been there?” Elsa finally asks. Jane is not surprised to have been caught.

“How long do you think?” Jane returns.

Elsa faces her and smiles. “Probably too long,” she jokes.

“You’ve created a wonderland, Your Highness,” Jane admires. She, too, is smiling. It would be impossible to do otherwise in the midst of magnificent ice sculptures and arches. 

“Please, call me Elsa. And I’ve had a good day,” Elsa explains. “You might not find wonderlands after a bad one.”

“I think even those would be startlingly graceful.” 

Elsa smiles and draws two ice-chairs over for them to use. “Anna calls them un-derlands. She likes to watch them melt.” 

Jane laughs. “A bit of a penchant for destruction?” 

“No,” Elsa smiles again, ducking her head. “Just the most optimistic person I know.” Elsa coughs and crosses her ankles under her seat. “I don’t just make furniture, you know. There’s a snowman named Olaf running around here somewhere.”

“You can create living things?” Jane gasps.

“As long as they have a cold source to sustain them,” Elsa nods. “Are there any faces you’re missing?”

Jane bows her head, considering the options. She thinks of her mother, whom she hasn’t seen in a very long time, certainly since before the voyage to Africa. She laughs at the idea of a snow-Terk running around with a loud mouth and stumpy arms. And of course, Jane thinks of Tarzan. She could provide Elsa with a sketch; Jane knows she will never be able to forget his face. 

But what Elsa could create physically she could not reproduce mentally, and it was Tarzan’s mind over which Jane marveled. She would love to see him again, but she misses him too much to ask.

Instead, Jane remembers a dog she’d had as a girl, and she describes his squashed face and long, waggling tongue. Elsa conjures him up in a matter of minutes and they spend the rest of the night laughing at how he dashes about the room.

Perhaps Elsa does have her bad days, but for Jane she has created only happiness.

/

Elsa does sit for another portrait in the morning. Jane finds a different ballroom in a different wing, one that streams the sun through stained-glass windows and washes Elsa in a soft spectrum of colors. The session takes a few hours and Jane loses herself in the painting. She has been without paints for too long; it is not until now that she realizes how much she has missed the brightness of reds and the calm swipes of blues.

Jane stops only when a member of the staff brings her a message. It is from her father, and Jane’s face falls the longer she reads it.

 _Jane—_

_Business beckons me to the jungles of South America; I don’t know how long I’ll stay but I will have to leave first thing tomorrow. The head of our expedition has requested your services as scribe and artist._

_They are, of course, your services to offer._

_As always,  
_ _Your father_

“Is something wrong?” Elsa asks.

“My father has been invited on another expedition,” Jane replies. “He’s asked if I’ll come with.” 

It is a moment before Elsa speaks. “Well, I suppose your visit to Arendelle had to end sometime.”

“I’d hoped not this quickly.” 

Elsa blushes and Jane almost starts for her paints again. “Me either.” She sighs and smooths her dress, sitting too straight in her chair. “Are you done for the day?”

Jane appraises her canvas, nodding. “Yes, thank you. I’ll, er, I’ll leave the finished portrait with you before I leave.”

“Thank you.” Elsa rises from her chair and Jane follows suit, hastily standing and almost spilling paint on her shoes. Her steps are measured as she passes by Jane on her way to the door.

“I wish you well on your adventure, Ms. Porter,” she says, and then she’s gone.

/

Jane does not visit the ballroom that night.

She does, however, read her father’s note over and over until the paper is soft as cotton in her fingers.

/

The castle is just starting to buzz when Jane leaves her room the next morning. She carries the portrait in a protective case, hoping to intercept Elsa before breakfast. 

(Her father, of course, will not leave for an expedition on an empty stomach. There is still time.)

She finds Elsa on a balcony, peering out of a window, hands clasped behind her back.

“I have the portrait for you.”

Elsa relaxes and turns around. “Thank you.” 

“I also have something else for you. You see, like your sister, I too take issue with stuffy court proceedings. You are an exemplary subject for a portrait, of course, but portraits do not do you justice.” Jane watches with a growing smile as Elsa unfurls the second drawing, the secret sketch made from behind the tapestry. “There is more than one kind of adventure, Your Highness. I’m sure you and your sister could show me all that Arendelle has to offer, if you don’t mind having a guest for a little while longer.” 

Elsa holds Jane’s sketch with small hands and delicate fingers. Her eyes are wide and wet and her smile is almost unbearably big. She looks up gratefully at Jane before pressing a light kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Elsa,” she says once more.

Jane’s fingers flutter reflexively to her lips, and she laughs.

“Yes. Elsa.”

/

In three weeks, Elsa will take her up the north mountain, past Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post, and Jane will find another wonderland.


End file.
